Putting God's Word into Practice…

Luke 7:36-50 ~ Faith and Forgiveness

by dailybiblereader2012 on March 31, 2012

In these verses a Pharisee named Simon invited Jesus over to his house for a meal. During the meal a sinful woman from the town came to see Jesus. She wept all over His feet and wiped her tears with her hair, kissed His feet and anointed them with ointment.

Simon thought to himself, if Jesus were a prophet he would have known how nasty this woman was. Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” I don’t know about you, but I would be quaking in my sandals at that point!

Jesus went on to teach a lesson about forgiveness and love. Those who are forgiven more, love more. Faith is demonstrated by love. Love was shown to Jesus by this woman in several ways: 1. She allowed herself to look foolish to the world to look precious to Christ. 2. She took a lowly, humble position before Christ. 3. She personally invested in Christ through the ointment offering. 4. She emotionally invested in Christ with her tears. 5. She boldly approached Jesus in an awkward social situation. For all these reasons, Jesus recognized her great faith and forgave her many sins.

Remember when you first came to Christ? The years and weight of sinful living fell away in an instant and were replaced with love, joy, zeal and freedom. Over time we seem to get accustomed to our sin again, we don’t see our sins as grievous to God and we begin to devalue the forgiveness of Jesus and our love for Him wanes.

When was the last time sin in my life put a heavy weight on my heart? When was the last time I valued forgiveness as a great gift instead of an entitlement–or worse thought my sin was so trivial I didn’t even ask for forgiveness. If I’m not feeling that grateful, humble adoration toward God for His mercy, maybe I haven’t been putting a high enough worth on forgiveness.